


A Cold Day

by tirsynni



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, mild crack, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 21:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15324330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: Loki wakes up in Hel.





	A Cold Day

Loki opened his eyes and saw Hela, hovering over him, frowning with her hands on her hips. Then there was nothing but panic and his knives in his hands and a rush of movement to get away from her. Not once did she move, so unimpressed that Loki knew he was about to die.

Wait.

Hold on.

Wasn’t he already dead? Choked and with throat crushed by Thanos?

Frowning, Loki lowered his weapons and looked around, keeping Hela in his peripheral. Grey. Grey rolling hills leading to a grey palace. He squinted. Was that the giant wolf frolicking in the grey grass? As least it provided some color.

“I fought against the Mad Titan, sacrificed myself to save that idiot’s life, and I am  _ still _ not worthy of Valhalla?” Loki scowled and tapped a knife against his thigh. “This is insulting!”

“Careful.” Hela’s wry voice made him flinch. Right. Almost forgot about her. “You might just insult  _ me _ .” She waved her arm at all the...greyness. Nothing else. Just grey. Stunning. “This is my kingdom, after all.”

It took Loki’s exhausted (dead) mind a moment to catch that. Hel. Hela. Huh. He frowned. Which came first? He shook his head. It didn’t matter. “I can see why you were eager to leave it.” He side-eyed her, but Hela remained still, elegant eyebrow arched. If he was going to be stuck here for all eternity, maybe he could provide her with some makeup tips. “I don’t suppose you could tell me if that idiot survived or not?”

Still no move to grab those terrifying blades of hers. Could you kill someone already dead? And could she show him how to do that particular trick?

Hela rolled her eyes at him and crossed her arms, her nail clicking against her bicep. Her clothes were still burnt and scratched. Perhaps he could give her advice on that, too. Just because they were dead (was she?) didn’t mean she had to dress like a corpse straight from the battlefield.

“My idiot brother?” Her voice was droll enough to earn a raised eyebrow. Impressive. “Survived, of course. Now grieving and working to throw his life away against the Titan. Truly a King to be proud of.”

Loki scowled and crossed his own arms, keeping his knives accessible. He stared at the palace in the distance. It held a certain gothic appeal. He could imagine spending the rest of eternity there, he supposed. A different theme from his last place but workable, and it appeared as if Hela wasn’t planning on killing him (again) for his role in Ragnarok. Except…

Thor really would get himself killed. The ungrateful bastard.

Which left the obvious question: how did one escape from Hel?

Hela scoffed, attracting his attention again. She eyed him with a look so reminiscent of Odin it ached a little. Being destined for Hel meant no reunion with him or Frigga. It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected it but --

“Get that look off your face. I have no plans of keeping you here.”

Loki paused and narrowed his eyes at her. She stared back, unimpressed. “Truly. What’s the catch.”

Hela shrugged and something about the movement looked familiar, as did the gleam in her eyes. “No catch. Just like every other time.”

...what? “What?”

Hela rolled her eyes at him and resumed tapping one sharp nail against her bicep. In the distance, the wolf tossed what looked like a grey body in the air before catching it in his powerful jaws. “We’ve been doing this since you were an infant. You didn’t die then, but it was quite close. You lasted a while before coming back, and this is your third time here in the last...ten years or so?”

Loki stared at her. He was more than aware that he looked like an idiot but he couldn’t quite stop himself. Three times… The Void? So much of that was an agonizing blur, it was more than possible he died and didn’t remember. After being run through on Svartalfheim, he woke up bloody and confused but thought that perhaps that monster’s blood had healed him. It had certainly kept the monster from dying when Loki had run  _ him _ through. Then...this.

While Loki was more than appreciative about the whole being alive over dead aspect, he knew there was more to this. “And why, mayhaps, do you revive me each time?”

With another shrug and toss of her long black hair (Loki knew a spell to fix those tangles), she said, “We go through this every time, too. You’re a paranoid one. You would think it would keep you alive more.”

Loki bit his tongue. There was no need to give her more fuel than necessary. No need to mention his idiot brother at all now that he knew Thor lived.

Though... He supposed his suicide attempt was a success, if only a temporary one.

As for Thor, this made twice (three times) his brother watched him die. How would Thor react discovering each death was a death in truth?

“It doesn’t hurt to tell you.” Hela studied him, a strange youthfulness to her which contrasted how old Thor looked when Loki saw him last. “You won’t remember when you wake up. If you stay here, I would have to spend forever dealing with your annoying attempts to steal my throne from under me. Hel’s boring, but not boring enough to put up with that.”

That was fair. Doing that to Odin was what led to his death, after all.

“You are also my son,” Hela continued casually. “I suppose I should be proud of you for causing Ragnarok. When Asgard returns, I’ll remember to keep a closer eye on you.”

Loki blinked. Then he blinked again. He licked his lips and cocked his head to the side. “I...beg your pardon?”

The tapping of her nail against her arm seemed incongruously loud. “Every time. Every time we do this. I don’t know why I bother explaining when I’ll have to do this again the next time you get yourself killed.”

When Loki swallowed, all he tasted was dust. Appropriate for a corpse. “Humor me, perhaps?”

The motion slow enough to be insulting, Hela looked him up and down, then herself. Now that Loki thought of it, she did look incredibly similar to his female form. “You’re clever enough to know that the old bastard wouldn’t take some infant in out of the goodness of his heart. He took his grandson in out of guilt and  _ my child _ to keep an eye on him.” Hela eyed him again and sniffed. “You’ve improved when it comes to conviction, and you almost took out the Jotun. After your little stunt, I had hundreds of them pop up here.” The corner of her mouth turned in a smirk. “Laufey was pissed. Killed by his own offspring. Good job with that.”

Loki expected to feel some guilt about that. After he took over as Odin, he checked in on them but refused to see how many he killed. As it was...well. He no longer looked at them as monsters, but he felt no more guilt for killing them than anyone else he had killed over the years. “Odin wasn’t even grateful,” he said. An easier topic than...well,  _ anything _ else.

Really, so much made sense now. Amazing how that didn’t help him feel better at all.

“He never was.” Hela twisted her head, and her neck popped with a disconcerting  _ crack _ . “Well, time to send you back. You won’t remember this, but try to stay alive a little longer this time. I have a lot of lazy soldiers to whip into shape before I go after Asgard again.”

With Loki at Thor’s side, obliviously working to kill his own mother. He considered that. He had killed his blood father with open eyes, so it wasn’t truly a terrible thing. That did leave one question, though.

“You and  _ Laufey? _ ”

“Good-bye, runt.” Hela flicked her fingers and --

Loki opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> For more Loki, fic, and fandom, check me out on [tumblr](http://tirsynni.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
